Texas Politics » Kolten Parkerhttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics
All Texas politics all the time from the San Antonio Express-News and Houston ChronicleMon, 29 Jun 2015 12:59:12 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Julián Castro, Dan Patrick debatehttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/04/watch-live-julian-castro-dan-patrick-debate/
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/04/watch-live-julian-castro-dan-patrick-debate/#commentsTue, 15 Apr 2014 22:02:50 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/?p=14742San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro and state Sen. Dan Patrick faced off in a discussion on immigration policy as a result of months of back-and-forth on social media.

Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott

Women in Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis’ Senate office last year averaged about $3,000 more in earnings than the male employees, according to data acquired by Austin bureau chief Peggy Fikac.

Out of 12 employees in Davis’ office, women averaged $43,050 and men averaged $40,378. There are six men and six women who work in Davis Fort Worth and Austin offices.

Name

Gender

Compensation

Sonya Grogg

F

$63,250.00

Charles Boswell

M

$51,000.00

Rick Svatora

M

$50,586.96

Sabrina Conner

F

$48,600.00

Christi Wiseman

F

$48,000.00

Ashley Brooks

F

$45,000.00

Graham Stadler

M

$42,000.00

Carmen Gaddis

F

$37,500.00

Michael Ramsey

M

$37,500.00

Dan Buda

M

$31,289.06

Joseph Landeros

M

$29,891.30

Kam Phillips

F

$15,947.73

Equal pay for women has been the focus of the Texas governor’s race this week and the issue has placed the two candidates on starkly different sides of the issue. Abbott said as governor he would have vetoed the equal-pay legislation sponsored by Davis last year.

On Tuesday, Fikac reported that out of more than 4,000 employees in Greg Abbott’s Attorney General’s Office, men make an average of $60,200 a year, and women make $44,708 on average. Out of the 722 assistant attorney generals under Abbott, the average salary for 343 men is $79,464 while the average salary for 379 women is $73,649.

Since Davis’ Senate office employees a significantly lower number of workers than Abbott’s state agency, the comparison is not identical, but it does offer a glimpse into the two governor candidate’s office salaries.

State Sen. Donna Campbell raised more than $420,000, with $165,000 coming from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, and Elisa Chan threw in $400,000 more of her own cash during the last reporting period before the March 4 primary, according to campaign finance reports.

Chan, a former San Antonio councilwoman who owns an engineering firm, has loaned her campaign a total of $600,000 since she announced her candidacy last year. She spent a total of $280,000 during the period, which runs from Jan. 22 – Feb. 24.

Mike Novak, a former Bexar County Commissioner, raised $67,000 during the reporting period and has loaned himself $5,000 in hopes of defeating the freshman senator. Novak spent $55,000 during the period, according to the reports.

Chan’s self-contribution gives her a lead in cash on hand in the week running up to the primary with $200,000. Campbell has $120,000 and Novak has $46,000 cash on hand.

Other notable contributors to Campbell’s campaign during the period include $1,000 from former Secretary of State John Steen and $10,000 from John Nau, CEO of Silver Eagle Distributors, the nation’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Bush products.

Campbell received nearly $250,000 in in-kind and cash donations in 2012 after the primary and before the runoff from TLR, the largest tort reform lobbying group in Texas. She used the boost to defeat longtime San Antonio Republican Jeff Wentworth in the district which includes parts of Bexar, Travis, Hays and Guadalupe counties and all of Kendall and Comal counties.

Campbell has outspent her opponents on television nearly 3-to-1, according to public data. Chan has focused on direct mail, her campaign said.

In the same breath, reporters expect unbiased access from campaigns, as they should.

State Sen. Wendy Davis’ gubernatorial campaign has drawn heat from a number of reporters over a Tuesday event which barred all news outlets other than the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news website based in Austin that livestreamed the event.

Twittered barbs have been tossed from reporters to campaign staff, members of the group that sponsored the event, and responding Democratic Party activists. Other media outlets, including the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Observer, and the Huffington Post, have written about the shutout.

David Rauf, a reporter with the Express-News Austin Bureau, has spearheaded a conversation on Twitter on proper and fair practices for political campaigns and reporters.

Below are a few of the tweets sent by Rauf, my colleague, and others who chimed in:

Including the ground rules and timing of a debate that spawned during a battle on social media between the two over what Patrick calls the “illegal invasion” in Texas.

Patrick, a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, wants the immigration debate to take place before the primary election on March 4, particularly to gain momentum and press coverage he hopes to boost him to a victory.

However, Castro, a Democrat, wants to wait until mid-March, after the primary, and says Patrick is scared to wait “in case (he) loses” the election, which he faces incumbent David Dewhurst, among others.

If Patrick wins the primary or, more likely, makes it to a May 27 runoff with Dewhurst, the debate could provide fodder for hometown Democrat state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who is also running for lieutenant governor.

AUSTIN – A San Antonio judge Tuesday scheduled a hearing in February to consider temporarily blocking Texas’ same-sex marriage ban.

Two same-sex couples from Plano and Austin filed the request for an injunction in November. The case is a part of seven similar ones filed in other states with the goal of eventually getting the constitutionality of a ban on same-sex marriage in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Attorney General Greg Abbott has pledged to defend the law, which was approved by 76% of voters in 2005.

Federal District Judge Orlando Garcia set the Texas hearing for February 12 at 9:30 a.m. at the John H. Wood, Jr. United States Courthouse in San Antonio.

If the judge grants the injunction, the case will be eligible for immediate appeal to the U.S. Fifth Circuit of Appeals in New Orleans.

The plaintiffs include Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman, a lesbian couple in Austin who were legally married in Massachusetts in 2009 and Vic Holmes and Mark Phariss of Plano.

A lawyer for the couple has said if the case gets to the Supreme Court, the two Texas couples would join plaintiffs in the other seven cases to challenge same-sex marriage bans.

State Rep. Dan Branch, who is running to replace Greg Abbott as attorney general, filed an amicus brief Monday with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of two HB2 provisions currently being considered by the court.

The provisions being challenged in court deal with admitting privileges for abortion providers and regulations for pill-induced abortions.

“There is an obvious rational basis to the admitting-privileges requirement—safeguarding the health and safety of Texans—and the requirement does not impose an undue burden on any constitutionally protected rights,” Branch writes in the brief. “Additionally, the district court erred in carving out an additional, overbroad exception to the medication limitations, even though H.B. 2 already provides for all exceptions necessary to survive constitutional scrutiny.”

Democrat Sam Houston filed for attorney general Thursday, promising to return the office to it’s basic functions of “serving all Texans” rather than “partisan lawsuits and constant disputes with the federal government.”

The Houston Democrat said specifically he wants to increase efficiency of the office’s current responsibilities such as child support enforcement, representing state interests in lawsuits and applying “hesitation” in litigation which use state resources.

“I do not think the office needs to be used to brag about suing the federal government,” he said.

He also said utilizing resources to improve the Consumer Protection division and solve open records request disputes fairly and quickly, particularly with technology-related requests, is a priority.

Houston, who received the most votes of any Democrat on the ballot in 2008 (3.5 million, 46%) as a candidate for state Supreme Court, will be challenging three Republicans vying for the position, including state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, state Sen. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, and Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman of Houston.

“All of their campaign slogans are the same thing: the 10th amendment, gun control, and commitment to defeating the Affordable Care Act,” Houston said. “I don’t hear a lot from them on how to improve everyday claims or improve the Consumer Protection division… these types of responsibilities have been forgotten.”

Houston admitted a challenge will be to raise money because his opponents “have been doing it much longer than I have.” He said he doesn’t expect to have a primary opponent.

Houston, who calls himself a “pragmatic Democrat”, said he thinks this is the year his party will overcome the 20 year losing streak at the statewide level.

“There has been just one voice heard in Texas for so long,” said Houston, a litigation attorney in Houston. “This is the first time in a while where we are really going to put the resources in, we are really going to have excitement; Wendy and Leticia bring that. So yes, this is the year.”

Houston (no relation to Texas legend and former governor Sam Houston) was raised in Colorado City in West Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and received his law degree from Baylor University. He has been practicing law for 27 years.

When asked if his name would be an advantage in Texas, Houston said he hopes so, but that he “didn’t make up the name to run for office… This has been my name for my entire life.”

After casting his vote for the November elections Wednesday, Gov. Rick Perry shared his views on the state’s implementation of it’s voter ID law and the controversial investigation and potential impeachment of University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall.

Perry, who, unlike the leading candidates to succeed him, did not have to sign an affidavit to cast his vote, said the process has been smooth.

“I gave my driver’s license and it went as advertised,” Perry said. “The elections are going quite well. As a matter of fact, we’ve had a substantially bigger turnout from 2011.”

(Video at bottom)

When asked if the new law is burdensome for some, Perry deferred the question to Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, the likely Democrat candidate for governor who opposed Texas’ voter ID law but offered an amendment allowing voters whose names on their ID’s are “substantially similar” but not exact to cast their vote by signing an affidavit.

“Interestingly, Senator Davis carried that, which required an affidavit to be signed,” Perry said. “As far as I know, this wasn’t an issue until the Legislature made it an issue.”

Democrats have said the controversial voter ID law will disenfranchise voters, specifically women who have changed their name because of marriage or divorce.

Perry called the investigation of Regent Wallace “extraordinary political theater,” “bad public policy,” and said it “sends a horrible message to the public.”

“The idea that a regent or an appointee in any place of government is being stymied from asking questions about a the operation of a particular agency is very, very bad public policy,” Perry said, adding that he supports Hall.

“At the end, the public’s need to know, and the public’s right to know, the questions Mr. Hall is asking is totally and absolutely correct,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ll find out whether there are things that are being hidden, if there are things individuals don’t want out in the public… I happen to support him in his efforts.”

AUSTIN – One of the few female Republican candidates on the statewide ballot – and the only one who currently holds office – announced Tuesday she is dropping out of the race for railroad commissioner and instead will focus on reelection in a Dallas House race.

State Rep. Stefani Carter, R-Dallas, released the below statement on her decision. The race was already crowded, with five other candidates. Carter was far behind top moneyraiser Malachi Boyuls in campaign cash, according to campaign finance data.

At last count, Carter had $3,301 cash on hand and Boyuls had $329,572.

Carter’s announcement leaves few female Republican candidates on the statewide ballot, and even fewer with a solid chance of winning.

Former gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina is eyeing a race for comptroller; conservative radio host Lisa Fritsch and television personality Miriam Martinez are running for governor; geologist Becky Berger is running for railroad commissioner; and Cathy Cochran and Jani Jo Wood, are running for Court of Criminal Appeals.

Carter’s statement:

During my exploration of a statewide race, I have received a tremendous amount of support throughout Texas, and for that I am extremely grateful.

In the past few weeks, however, I have also been strongly encouraged by many constituents, as well as many business, political, and grassroots leaders, to continue to represent them as their conservative voice in House District 102.

There are many issues facing the State of Texas. In the Texas Legislature, I have stood in favor of job creation, public education, low taxation, limited regulation, and tort reform, and I am proud of having been named “Taxpayer Champion,” “Courageous Conservative,” and “Best of the Legislature.” I wish to continue working on important state issues in making Texas an even better place to live and raise a family.

Therefore, after much consideration and prayer, I have decided to run for re-election as State Representative in the 2014 Republican Primary.

I am appreciative of my community’s encouragement, and I am proud to serve as the State Representative in House District 102. I look forward to serving another term in the Texas House of Representatives.